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Electric Bicycles Surging In Popularity
gollum123 writes "An accidental transportation upheaval began in China, where an estimated 120 million electric bicycles now hum along the roads, up from a few thousand in the 1990s. They are replacing traditional bikes and motorcycles at a rapid clip and, in many cases, allowing people to put off the switch to cars. The booming Chinese electric-bike industry is spurring worldwide interest and impressive sales in India, Europe, and the US. China is exporting many bikes, and Western manufacturers are also copying the Chinese trend to produce models of their own. From virtually nothing a decade ago, electric bikes have become an $11 billion global industry. In the Netherlands, a third of the money spent on bicycles last year went to electric-powered models. Industry experts predict similar growth elsewhere in Europe, especially in Germany, France, and Italy, as rising interest in cycling coincides with an aging population. India had virtually no sales until two years ago, but its nascent market is fast expanding and could eclipse Europe's in the next year. In China, electric bicycles have evolved into bigger machines that resemble Vespa scooters. These larger models are causing headaches for global transportation planners. They cannot decide whether to embrace them as a green form of transportation, or ban them as a safety hazard. Some cities are studying the halfway measure of banning them from bicycle lanes while permitting them on streets."
I'm a careful driver but many cyclists I come across make it hard not to run over them, what with driving through every gap between cars they can fit into regardless of the lanes, going through a car or a pedestrian green light, whichever comes first, and acting like jerks every time a car fails to signal or otherwise violates some traffic rule while they themselves almost completely ignore every single one of them.
Oh, I'm sure you are not one of those, but since you are generalizing I thought I'd join in.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
I've seen that in other countries. Amsterdam has a lot of bicycles which look like they are about to disintegrate into component atoms due to the rust damage any minute.
The reason for this is that here in the US, bikes are somewhat a style thing. If you are doing road, you have to have the $7000 carbon fiber frame [1] with Dura-Ace or Super Record, or you will be viewed as an amateur. Similar with a mountain biker coming up to a Cat 1 with anything but XTR or X.0 will be viewed as a hack and told to replace their Huffy with something racable. If you are touring, you must have the latest custom made Vanilla bike, or you will be viewed as someone who got a DWI. Even the hipsters "require" a fairly high-zoot frame for their fixies. A lot of Americans view something like the stereotypical Flying Pigeon from China as a joke.
[1]: Of course, we all know how fragile CF is... if you don't have a torque wrench and crank a tad too much adjusting your seatpost, expect the thing to break and have a jagged spear pointed right at your bum. However, since CF is light and cool looking, it is the style now... even though a CF bike frame has to be thrown in the trash if it gets even the slightest gouge or crack.
This is perfectly legal, although of course the cyclist may want to make his intentions clear to avoid getting hit.
The problem is that when drivers ignore the traffic laws around cyclists, it's a threat to the cyclist's life. People tend to get testy when other people are acting like they want to kill them.
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Okay, I bike everyday, in Canada. Whether snow, ice, or -40 Celsius. I hate this just as much as you. Because I stop, and I follow all the laws to the best of my ability -- little useless bell (voice is much louder) on my handlebars and all. Here's one I also follow: the speed-limit. However, pretty much every automobile driver I meet does not follow the speed limit. So, it's not like motorists are somehow more law-abiding than cyclists -- because almost 100% of motorists break the speed limit. There's this one road I go down -- 30kph speed limit, and yet every car behind me always seems to catch up and pass me rather quickly when I'm going along at 30kph. In fact, I would say that most are going 50kph. That's more than 66% over the speed limit. Is every motorist continuously late for work or something? And in 50kph zones, it seems that 70kph or greater is the norm amongst motorists. On the highway you would be as lucky as a lottery-winner to see someone cruising not more than 90kph, the speed limit.
And cars seem to have trouble with stop-signs as well. They slow-down for them, but as for a complete stop -- that's a rarity. They seem to like to just crawl through them at 1 to upward of 5 kph.
Really the only group of motorists with which I'm continually impressed are the school-bus drivers.
But I've been semi-facetious so far. This is how it actually is: The motorist thinks on the highway: "Well, this highway is still safe at 100kph. It's only 10kph over the speed limit and visibility and conditions are fine. So even though it is breaking law, I'll do it." If he actually thought that he would get into an accident, he wouldn't do it. This is what the cyclist is thinking at the stop-sign: "No one else is coming, so, if I just go through, it will be fine. So even though it is breaking the law, I'll do it." If he actually thought that he would get into an accident, he wouldn't do it.